A problem frequently encountered in colder climates is the freezing of weather stripping around doors and hatches of vehicles which prevents a user from either entering or exiting the vehicle when the weather stripping has become frozen to body parts of the vehicle. A substantial amount of force is required to overcome the boding created by the frozen weather stripping. A typical person is usually unable to supply sufficient force to overcome the frozen bond accordingly, a need exists for a device which would alleviate the force required to overcome frozen weather stripping in doorways and hatches of vehicles.
Prior art patents which are concerned with vehicle weather stripping are as follows:
Yamashita, U.S. Pat. No. 5,639,533 which discloses a door weather strip.
Balcerski, et al, U.S. Pat. No. 5,558,741 which discloses a method for making a weather strip.
Takeuchi, U.S. Pat. No. 5,369,914 which discloses a weather strip.
Omura, et al, U.S. Pat. No. 5,367,830 which discloses a roof side weather strip for a motor vehicle.
Miyakawa, et al, U.S. Pat. No. 5,343,655 which discloses a weather strip for the window glass of an automobile.
Moore, U.S. Pat. No. 5,311,702 which discloses a door seal.
As can be seen from the prior art patents there has never been a device as the present which overcomes the problem associated with frozen weather stripping on vehicle doors and hatches. Additionally, there has never been a weather strip system as the present which includes a power supply, a number of weather stripping elements each including resilient rubber weather stripping portions and a heating element installed within the resilient rubber weather stripping portion that is controlled by a control unit wherein the control unit prevents the heating element from being heated to a temperature above the point where the weather stripping would be damaged and further the control unit includes a thermostat for keeping the weather stripping above the freezing point and preventing the doors and hatches from being frozen shut from frozen weather stripping, further wherein the power supply is either 115 volt conventional AC power or 12 volt VC power from the vehicle's battery and further wherein the system is either activated remotely by a small key ring remote control, an external on/off switch or an on/off switch mounted within the interior of the vehicle.